Working Girl

N.B.:Some of the visual pictures in the last paragraph may be graphic and a bit gross.Parental Guidance is advised for this post.
Maybe "errand girl" would be more apt.I'm now posted in Paediatrics but I never get to do any cool stuff any more.My job description involves mainly tracing reports(no,I don't draw them out)ie I have to go to the required department and look for the required report and bring it back!Isn't that exciting?Just what I always dreamed of doing when I finally finished studying!The closest I come to anything clinical is the four hourly blood pressure montoring(something that we learnt in first year,isn't that exciting!)which I'm supposed to lose sleep over.And let us not forget the all important work of escorting patients to various OPDs or getting sanctions from the AMO(still not sure what that means) to make a particular investigation free.I almost forgot...every emergency day we have to see that each patient has soap...can you believe that...soap and if they can't get it get it for them somehow!
Yours truly has been elected "intern to be most tortured".I have the dubious honour of being the intern in charge of family screening.This means that if any child with tuberculosis is admitted(God!How I dread that!)I have to go through an extremely laborious procedure to get them tested for the same(because obviously the alternative would entail less work for the interns)rather than get them to do it themselves.
Luckily for me,when it rains,it doesn't really pour,unless its actually raining in Bombay because we all know how that ends nowadays(Yes,I love mixing my metaphors and making horrible puns!).On a reference to Neurosurgery,I got to witness a ventricular tap.For the non medicos,that means I got to watch the extra fluid around the brain being drained off...a simple but really cool procedure(no comments about sadism)especially when performed by a competent and skilled professional and a one which I would neber have seen as an intern otherwise.And for someone who's interested in Surgery,it was like the heavens had opened and pored their blessings down on me(there I go again with another metaphor aout the rain).
So,on the whole,this posting hasn't been too bad...and if I'm stiil posting in two weeks,that means I made it out alive in one piece,only to be overwhelmed by Obstetrics & Gynaecology.The light at the end of the tunnel...my Surgery posting seems to be sooooo far away!

Liff As I Know It!

On a more serious note...

I thought the graphic details of various terrorist attacks which have been plastered all over the news nowadays had numbed my senses.An article in today's Times of India(specifically the Bombay Times) however proved me unpleasantly wrong!

"What is so immeasurably wrong if a mother of two daughters wants to have a male child?" was what Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar of the Bombay High Court remarked when he heard a PIL filed by a couple challenging the legality of the ban on pre-natal sex determination tests.
Pardon me for thinking that this particular argument holds no water.Or maybe it's beyond the grasp of us mere mortals...one has to be a legal eagle to understand such "logical" arguments!I find it disturbing that an eminent personality would endorse such a view!Of course,I guess I shouldn't be too surprised considering the number of educated people who commit female foeticide nowadays and the unscrupulous doctors who enable them!
I don't think there is anything wrong if the mother of two daughters wants a son(or vice versa).Medical science has come up with ways to select the foetus of your child(its come on Oprah too so I guess it's common knowledge!)What is wrong though is to kill your unborn child if he/she isn't the sex you wanted!All religions honor the female deity whether it be the Devi of Hinduism or Mother Mary in Christianity.Inspite of that female infanticide is so high,that in parts of the country.the male:female ratio is 1000:<800
http://www.mapsofindia.com/census2001/sexratio/sexratio-india.htm
Compare this to the rest of the world where the norm is that females outnumber the males(which is probably the only reason why the human race made it so far)
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/gender/graphics/2000_gratio_print.gif

What really shocked me was that in this article the Chief Justice actually seemed to condone prenatal sex determination for the purpose of abortion!Isn't it bad enough that we have unscrupulous doctors who perform such procedures...do we have to legalise it so that they can do it openly.Legally sanctioning foeticide or in other words killing innocent children implies a total collapse of our legal system...it rings the death knell of the conscience of society as a whole! On the other hand,vibrating condoms are a big no-no and pose a major moral dilemna for our concerned policticians: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1104708

Working in a government hospital has made me uncomfortably aware of the magnitude of the AIDS problem in India.The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in commercial sex workers is very high(some reports estimate it to be approx 20%) and their clientele not only contract the disease but pass it on to their wives therefore leaving so many children orphaned!Not content with mucking up their children's lives this much,a healthy number(pun intended) inspite of being aware of their disease and counselled for the same now proceed to have children(and do not take drugs during the pregnancy which will prevent transmission of the infection though they are provided free of cost).Thus they sentence the very lives they were supposed to nurture and cherish to a lifetime of suffering and a lingering death!However,premarital HIV testing is a subject of controversy in states like Andhra Pradesh and Goa(which have a very high prevalence of the disease) because it offends the sentiments of the people. Since when did the culture that gave rise to the Kamasutra become such a bunch of prudes that we'd rather let our children die than educate them about a fatal disease?

Liff As I Know It!